Milestones, Dec. 10, 1956

Born. To Floyd Patterson, 21, and Sandra Elizabeth Hicks Patterson, 18: their first child, a daughter, four hours and 23 minutes before Boxer Patterson anesthetized creaky old Archie Moore to become heavyweight champ (see SPORT) ; in New York City. Name: Seneca. Weight: 6 Ibs. 2 oz.

Married. Joni James (real name: Joan Carmella Babbo), 26, tiny (5 ft. 1 in.) jukebox thrush (Your Cheatin' Heart); and Anthony Acquaviva, 30, her manager; in Manhattan.

Died. Charles Peete, 27, American Association batting champ (he hit .350 this year for the St. Louis Cardinals' Omaha farm club), his wife Nettie and their three small children; en route to Valencia, Venezuela, where Negro Centerfielder Peete was to play winter ball; in the crash of an airliner near Caracas.

Died. Thomas Francis (Tommy) Dorsey Jr., 51, hot-tempered hot trombonist and bespectacled "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing"; of suffocation in his sleep during an attack of nausea; in Greenwich, Conn. Tommy and his elder brother, Saxophonist Jimmy, called their first band (1920) "Dorsey's Novelty Six," later razzed up the title to "Dorsey's Wild Canaries." The Dorseys riffed through the jazz-dazzled '20s under Bandleaders Paul Whiteman, Red Nichols and Rudy Vallee, by 1934 had formed the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra, within a year hit the bigtime of the big-band era. Then Tommy stomped off the bandstand in a tiff over tempo, truculently hired his own band, by the time (1953) he and Jimmy were playing together regularly again, had made a pile of cash ($900,000 a year at one point) and some fine jazz (Opus I, Well Git It) and swing (Song of India, Marie).

Died. Benjamin Platt Thomas, 54, Lincoln scholar, whose Abraham Lincoln (1952) was generally considered the best modern one-volume biography of the President; by his own hand (revolver) during a period of depression caused by throat cancer; in Springfield, Ill.

Died. Mrs. Else F. Schlemmer, petite, fiftyish, Danish-born widow of William F. Schlemmer, longtime (1916-45) owner of Hammacher Schlemmer, Manhattan's classy housewares knickknack (sea-urchin paste, bronze fig leaves for statues) dispensary, who took over the firm, ran it for eight years after her husband's death, in 1952 named more than 100 store employees in her sizable will; after long illness; in Manhattan.

Died. Vice Admiral (ret.) Leslie Clark Stevens, U.S.N., 61, onetime (1947-49) U.S. naval attache in Moscow, earlier (1937-44) in charge of Bureau of Aeronautics development of World War II naval aircraft; of a heart attack; in Sanford, Fla. Admiral Stevens spoke Russian fluently, understood Russia's history and literature, grew to like the Russian people as much as he disliked their government, wrote a thoughtful, objective book (Russian Assignment) on his experiences. Russophile Stevens' prediction: "As surely as light follows darkness, the problems created in a decent people by the forced maintenance of power will somehow in the end destroy that power."

Died. Charles Elmer (Charley) Rochester, 63, Manhattan hotelman, longtime (1932-55) manager of the Lexington, where he established (1937) the famed Hawaiian Room, where tourists festooned with orchid leis ogle Polynesian cuties; of a heart attack; in New Canaan, Conn.